THE BATS I HAVE HAD 95 



old age and a quarrelsome disposition and that its 

 joints were rheumatic; the old reprobate had the 

 gout, and whenever it attempted to crawl or move 

 it would begin to swear, in bat language, just like 

 a gouty human sinner. Far more interesting than 

 this crabbed wreck, were the mother bat and 



TWO LITTLE BABY BATS 



which a small boy captured for me on a tree in 

 Flushing. I made careful studies of the little bats 

 and after their death preserved them in alcohol, 

 but the drawings have been misplaced or lost, the 

 alcohol in the bottle long since evaporated and the 

 bodies disintegrated. I am very sorry for this, be- 

 cause I know of no good picture of baby bats 

 drawn from life. The two little babies, when cap- 

 tured, were clinging to the breast of their mother, 

 and when I put her inside the wire cage, built for 

 the white-footed mice, the babies did not loosen 

 their hold of mamma. 



I fed the old bat with small pieces of fresh meat, 

 which I gave to her from the point of a hat-pin. 

 Perhaps the red meat was too strong for her 

 stomach, or it may be that the old mother bat was 

 injured by the boy when he captured her; at any 

 rate she did not live long in confinement. 



Under the circumstances it did not seem strange 

 that the bat should perish, but her actions and 

 preparation for death struck me as being very novel 

 and interesting. It was her custom to hang all 



